


Little Poison Spears #1

by voleuse



Category: House
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-11-17
Updated: 2008-11-17
Packaged: 2017-10-04 02:03:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voleuse/pseuds/voleuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>"O Elephant," they say, "you are not so big and brave today!"</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Little Poison Spears #1

**Author's Note:**

> Set after 4.16. Title and summary adapted from Tony Hoagland's _Lawrence_.

Every other morning, he woke up and found Cuddy curled up in the chair next to his bed. While she slept, her arm bridged the gap between her chair and the bed. The call button lay between their hands; the first time he noticed it, he wanted to laugh. The punch line was, _Call me Isolde_, so he never told the joke out loud.

She didn't tell him about Wilson leaving until four days after the fact. He hated her blindly for a burning blue moment, then remembered her guilt was the most useful weapon in his arsenal, anyway.

"As much as I enjoy our little sleepovers," he told her, ignoring the catch in her voice, "the glass doors and gauzy curtains are kind of a turn-off."

"House," she said, but her hands were on her hips, and it was almost perfect.

"Unless you're into that," he said. "I could always call Thirteen, have her come and watch."

Cuddy rolled her eyes and turned, and he watched very intently as she walked away.

*

 

Cameron showed up in his office a week later, a clutch of yellow daisies in her hand and a smile on her face. She confiscated one of the pink plastic cups from the breakfast tray he had stolen from a patient--who was sleeping and wouldn't have eaten anything anyway--and arranged the flowers to fit.

"I hate flowers," he grumbled. "Especially the cheerful-looking ones."

"It's why I brought them," she said, all mockery, but she folded her arms before making eye contact. "I'm glad you're not dead."

"You, my bookie, and a lady of the night named Arlene make three," he replied. He wondered if it would be more insulting to toss the daisies right away. "You couldn't have just sent a card?"

"You would have ignored a card," Cameron responded.

"Well, yeah." He nodded, twirling his cane before standing. "Hence the--"

"Wilson didn't say goodbye, did he?" She tilted her head, searching for his reaction.

He didn't give her one, but instead treaded past her. "I'm sure I have lives to save out there." He looked back at her as he swung the door open. "Time to give the people what they want."

He walked the long circle and stole someone's pudding cup. When he got back to his office, she was gone, and so were the flowers.

*

 

If Cuddy didn't bring him a case, then Foreman did, or sometimes Kutner. Sometimes, in the dead of night, he would thumb through the files sitting on his desk before rearranging them according to how little he cared.

He played Hendrix at midnight and Avril at forty past, and he was bored, bored completely out of his mind.

He couldn't kick the door open, so he jammed at it with his cane instead. He crossed the border of his balcony and yanked at the door to Wilson's office.

It was locked, but that didn't matter to him. He had three copies of the key.


End file.
